Nathan Mendelsohn's American BJJ Player Blog: Brackets out for the SF Open!

The brackets came out for tomorrow's IBJJF SF Open and it looks like there's gonna be some sick matchups!!

There are a number of high level black belts signed up including Augusto Queixinho and Samir Chantre of Gracie Fighter, Marcel Fortuna of Ralph Gracie, and Tyson Kamp of Coalition 95. In the black belt adult middleweight division we may see a tough match between Marcos Torregrossa of Lloyd Irvin and Vitor Henrique of GFTEAM, whereas in the lightweight division I have Steven Rosenberg of Nova Uniao and Matt Darcy of Guerrilla Jiu-Jitsu as my favorites to make the finals.

The Brown belt matches in San Francisco this Sunday should also be exciting, and I'm looking forward to contesting the brown belt middleweight division against some really tough athletes.I'm slated to face Tim Pablo in my first match and on the other side of the bracket will be a killer fight between Tanner Rice of Amazonas BJJ and Sean Roberts of Ralph Gracie both fighters with tough guards and really technical games and also both fighters that I have faced before. Just last month I had an exciting match against Tanner Rice that was decided by mere advantages in my favor and at last year's US Open we also faced off to a similar outcome (check out my blog posts on the All Star #1 and the US Open XVI for descriptions of those matches). As a purple belt I faced Sean Roberts in a no gi match which I also was able to win by mere advantages. Naturally, I would be stoked for the chance to compete against either of these two talented athletes again. My first match is sure to be tough but if I'm able to impose my game on my opponent and come out the winner then I'll be looking forward to facing the winner of the match between Sean and Tanner in the finals!! The Absolute division should be tough as well, and I hope to have a match with Mark Tse of Gracie Humaita, another strong competitor.

If you're in the Bay Area come by Merrit College in Oakland to check out all the action tomorrow, Sunday, February 26th. Go to www.ibjjf.org[2] for more information. And here's a link to the brackets if you want to check it out yourself http://www.ibjjf.org/cgi-bin/montachaves.asp[3].